Dounia was simply essential to him, to do without her was unthinkable. For many years he had had voluptuous dreams of marriage, but he had gone on waiting and amassing money. He brooded with relish, in profound secret, over the image of a girl-virtuous, poor ( she must be poor), very young, very poor, of good birth and education, very timid, one who had suffered much and was completely humbled before him, one who would all her life look on him as her saviour, worship him and only him.
We always imagine eternity as something beyond our conception, something vast, vast! But why must it be vast? Instead of all that, what if it’s one little room, like a bath house in the country, black and grimy and spiders in every corner, and that’s all eternity is? I sometimes fancy it like that.
Ghosts are, as it were, shreds and fragments of other worlds, the beginning of them. A man in health has, of course, no reason to see them, because he is above all a man of this earth and is bound for the sake of completeness and order to live only in this life. But as soon as one is ill, as soon as the normal earthly order of the organism is broken one begins to realise the possibility of another world; and the more seriously ill one is, the closer one’s contact with the other world, so that as soon as the man dies he steps straight into that world.
‘There is some truth to your observation’ the latter replied. ‘In the sense we are certainly all not infrequently like madmen, but with the slight difference that the deranged are somewhat madder, for we must draw a line. A normal man, it is true, hardly exists. Among dozens-perhaps hundreds of thousands-hardly one is to be met with.”
“Although Pulcheria Alexandrova was forty-three, her face still retained traces of her former beauty; she looked much younger than her age, indeed, which is almost always the case with women who retain sensitivity of spirit, sensitiveness and pure sincereness of heart to old age. We add in parenthesis that to preserve all this is the only means of retaining beauty to old age.”
THE LIBERATION OF RORY DYLAN STEPHEN: GOOD-BY KEITH! A THEATRICAL LIBERATION: UNTIL WE MEET IN ALBANIA
Up and at Ems early this morning. I am feeling giddy. After the carnage I have witnessed, wouldn’t you?
In a van driven by Keith, our former “butler” on the Eastern & Oriental Express, the “illegitimate son” of Madame Fong and Sir Reginald Nicomshire I am transported to a fancy condominium on Orchard Road where Melanie Lau awaits me with a bowl of Singaporean chicken and a mountain of rice.
Keith gives me a hug and says until we meet in Albania! He smiles and says I should be ready to be used and most likely abused.
He shuts the door and is off.
I am losing any concept of reality.
Where are Bob and Fay? We are supposed to be reunited today!
As I fade into a hazy nap the door is pounded down and heavily armed members of the Singaporean Police Force arrive to “liberate me” all as recorded by Singaporean government media cameras. WTF is this some bloody propaganda film?!
A media circus swarmed the entrance to the Singapore Shangri-La.
The first question was how many confirmed deaths and were there any survivors?
The Singaporean Transport Minister replied there were 146 fatalities including three on the ground killed by falling shrapnel. One crew member and the famous West Highland Terrier Cuddlecakes who had received a slight shrapnel wound and was suffering from shock and undergoing treatment at an undisclosed location in Singapore.
The Malays for Equality in Singapore (MES) terrorist organization masterminded the attack funded by extremist Sunni Muslims. Amira “The Deadly One”, as a passenger, planted and detonated the explosives.
Due to the widespread destruction of evidence and witnesses the murder investigations of Sir Reginald Nicomshire and Madame Fong were closed.
Due to the “close relationship” between “Amira the Deadly” and Cuddlecakes that West Highland Terrier was under high suspicion as a possible accomplice.
I was in a suite at Raffles Singapore with Keith and my good friend, Raffles, a fellow Westie and the hotel mascot had joined me on his breaks. God it was good to have a friend! He had asked me to go rat hunting with him in the hotel kitchen but overwhelmed by grief and shock I deferred until a later time.
Who devised that title “Amira the Deadly” and the patently false statement the MES was a terrorist organization! Seems as if the Singaporean political elite was “accommodating” an important ally.
Keith said if all goes well, and so many things were not going well, I was to be reunited with Bob and Fay tomorrow.
THE LIBERATION OF RORY DYLAN STEPHEN: EVERYTHING TO PIECES! MY PUPPYHOOD FINALLY RIPPED FROM ME
I understand Bob and Fay made arrangements to fly from Toronto to Singapore via Hong Kong. They would be at Singapore Shangri-La late tomorrow evening. Blessed reunion!
All the passengers were partaking in their last meal on the Eastern & Oriental Express. At 14:00 we were to be taken from the train to be processed by Singaporean Immigration and Customs. We were told to expect a massive media presence outside the Woodlands train station. Two murders on a luxury train was newsworthy. The fact no progress had been made nor much official interest being shown in the murder investigation of Madame Fong had all level-headed persons scratching their heads. And of course, why had the two Budweiser swilling hamburger and ketchup men been released from the train prior to their questioning for the murder of Sir Reginald Nicomshire and had been picked up by American embassy Surburbans? Something very rotten in the state of Denmark!
Our butler Keith appeared somewhat anxious persistently looking at his watch as he took me, earlier than usual for a post luncheon walk in a field about 700 meters from the train. A usual stinking hot and humid day in Singapore.
Then a deafening roar, like I have never heard before and the Eastern & Oriental Express with all passengers and crew obliterated in a several huge explosions. Keith dragged me to a nearby shed as chunks of metal and what appeared to be body parts rained down upon us.
In a state of shock it tsunamied me……Bobby Fong, Jr. and Amira gone!!!!
How much more death and destruction must I encounter. Did so many die because of my abduction? Am I the cause of so much evil?
Don’t tell me otherwise, don’t you dare! I saw three black jets without markings drop their deadly payload on the train.
It took only a few short hours, suspiciously short, for Singaporean and Malaysian authorities to conclude Amira, my dearest friend Amira, had placed explosives throughout the train and in a suicide mission triggered them as after all wasn’t she a prominent member of the “terrorist” organization Malays for Equality in Singapore (MES) and wasn’t it well known the MES was funded by Pakistan Sunni Muslim extremist groups? Muslims…suicide bombers… like meat sauce on spaghetti!
To Singaporean and Malaysian authorities, I say bullshit! I saw these three “unmarked” jets dropping their ordinances on the train. Singapore and Malaysia which dog is wagging your tail? Why did those two Budweiser swilling hamburger eaters leave the train to the American embassy in the midst of a murder investigation in which they were suspects! Gee whiz it was transparent who was putting the muscle on Singapore and Malaysia! Apple pie and ice-cream.
And the press and their cameras prohibited from waiting for us outside the Woodlands train station told to convene at the Chung Ballroom at the Singapore Shangri-La instead. Their cameras might just have recorded those three jets. Unmarked. Why?
And why had Keith been in such a hurry to get me out of the train before it was obliterated. Who was he working with?
Witnesses, documents…..gone… perhaps for some hopefully forgotten.
So yes I am liberated. My puppyhood lost deep in the blood stained woods…..
“Fear gained more and more mastery over him, especially after this second, quite unexpected murder. He longed to run away from the place as fast as possible. And if at that moment if he had been capable of seeing and reasoning more correctly, if he had been able to realise all the difficulties of his position, the hopelessness, the hideousness and the absurdity of it, if he could have understood how many obstacles, and perhaps crimes he still had to overcome or to commit, to get out of that place and to make his way home, it is very possible he would have flung up everything, and would have gone to give himself up, and not from fear, but from simple horror and loathing of what he had done. The feeling of loathing especially surged up within him and grew stronger every minute.”
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